Actual Freedom – The Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence

On The Actual Freedom Mailing List

with Correspondent No. 60


January 10 2006

RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good.

CO-RESPONDENT: Just as an example, Richard? I was feeling good till today morning. When I came to office today at 9.30am, I came to know that I have been dismissed due to a false complaint of a co-worker. I am not feeling good, in fact I am feeling shaken and insecure and thinking hard as to how to take care of my family. I am not vengeful or spiteful towards the complainant. For the life of me I can’t see how this sudden state of insecurity or of worry about my financial future is ‘silly’. I am considering it a justifiable reaction to a crisis. Hence, I am feeling as-is (worried, insecure and nervous). Any comments?

RICHARD: Just for starters:

1. In what way is feeling shaken going to take care of your family?
2. In what way is feeling insecure going to take care of your family?
3. In what way is feeling worried going to take care of your financial future?
4. In what way is feeling nervous going to take care of your financial future?

Now, you also report [quote] ‘thinking hard’ [endquote] ... in what way is feeling shaken/ feeling insecure/ feeling worried/ feeling nervous going to enable you to sensibly and thus judiciously think, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement the considered activity which such a situation, as being dismissed in such circumstances as being falsely complained about, quite obviously requires?

In other words would not feeling good, as you were prior to today morning, be much more conducive to intelligence operating in such an optimum manner?

If so, then what is standing in the way of feeling good again, as you were prior to today morning, is nothing else other than your shaken/ insecure/ worried/ nervous consideration that feeling shaken/ feeling insecure/ feeling worried/ feeling nervous is a justifiable reaction to a crisis.

Surely there is nothing, but nothing, which can ever sensibly justify having one’s intelligence being run by feelings?

CO-RESPONDENT: Thanks. Just for information, the situation I described is a hypothetical one (not an actual one) but your comments are as valid. I agree with you on all counts. Being bounced around / being overwhelmed with / being guided by feelings is a hindrance to an intelligent appraisal of the situation and of working towards a solution to a crisis.

RESPONDENT: Even for a trivial problem, if your example was to be at least half way true to life you would have said something like: ‘I know the feeling of being shaken/ insecure/ worried/ nervous doesn’t really help to solve the problem, and it even prevents me from thinking clearly, but knowing the feeling is unhelpful doesn’t make the feeling go away. What can I do about it?’ If a person’s feelings are being produced by their belief that the feeling is justified, why on earth would they be asking Richard how to end the feeling? There was a more realistic example of this nature posted by Respondent No. 04 a while back (from real life) – he had some kind of accident and was shaken up by it, and although he knew the feeling was unhelpful, knowing that didn’t make it go away. I’m sure anyone can find similar examples in their own life. In the real-world case, in contrast to this put-up job, Richard’s advice did not work.

RICHARD: http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=912378527

January 10 2006

RESPONDENT: I should have trusted my own judgement all along. This ‘happy and harmless as humanly possible while remaining a self’ bullshit ... it’s just delaying the inevitable (and maybe getting so comfortable with it that there’s no longer a powerful enough incentive to go the rest of the way). No two ways about it, ‘self’-immolation is out and out suicide, an all-or-nothing affair if ever there was one ... and all the happy/ harmless minimise-this-feeling maximise-that-feeling is no more than another game of ego, another way of jerking off and jerking oneself around.

No thanks.

RICHARD: Now that you have, presumably, reverted to trusting your own judgement ... has that all-or-nothing affair you speak so emphatically of happened yet?

Yes?

No?

If your answer is ‘no’, then what are you going to do in the meanwhile ... keep on with your current [quote] ‘game of ego’ [endquote], perchance?

January 10 2006

(... snip ...)

RICHARD: For example, one fine afternoon some time ago someone whose son had come of age, and who had just left the family home to take up a job in a city situated many an hours drive way, came to see me: she was visibly agitated, fretful, and soon advised me she was apprehensive, anxious, worried about him driving all that way, so I asked her to explain to me in just what way those feelings of hers could possibly work as a preventative for any potential vehicular crash. And so the discussion moved on, through the many and various aspects of the human condition such feelings bring to the surface, but to no avail until she happened to mention, en passant, that she would not be able to feel at ease until he had arrived safely (she had extracted a promise from him to call her as soon as he arrived) whereupon, after launching into a graphic description of the frenetic pace of around-the-clock city traffic, as contrasted to the laid-back village tempo, I suggested that her worrying days were far from over, that she had better ready herself for the long haul, maybe even get in a supply of anxiety supplements from the local snake-oil emporiums in case her apprehension were ever to wane over the years to come. That did the trick.

RESPONDENT: And !poof! all anxiety concerning her son’s well-being disappeared forever, eh?

RICHARD: As I was providing an example of how, when conversing with others in-person on more than a few occasions, my response to what my co-respondent had presented was essentially no different to those real-life situations – and not an example of what happens when another puts the actualism method into action full-time with dedicated pure intent – your current [quote] ‘game of ego’ [endquote] query is both a waste of your time typing it out and the bandwidth used to send it.

RESPONDENT: Or did it perhaps keep coming and going as it always had?

RICHARD: For your information: the person referred to above – just like the co-respondent you so erroneously cited only the previous evening – was not a practitioner of the actualism method.

I respond in more or less the same way to virtually anybody in-person ... the main difference, in writing to this mailing list, is that it is specifically set-up so as to facilitate a sharing of experience and understanding, and to assist in elucidating just what is entailed in becoming free of the human condition, whereas quite often in my face-to-face interactions with my fellow human being the other is unaware that any such freedom is possible.

January 10 2006

RESPONDENT: I should have trusted my own judgement all along. This ‘happy and harmless as humanly possible while remaining a self’ bullshit ... it’s just delaying the inevitable (and maybe getting so comfortable with it that there’s no longer a powerful enough incentive to go the rest of the way). No two ways about it, ‘self’-immolation is out and out suicide, an all-or-nothing affair if ever there was one ... and all the happy/ harmless minimise-this-feeling maximise-that-feeling is no more than another game of ego, another way of jerking off and jerking oneself around.

No thanks.

RICHARD: Now that you have, presumably, reverted to trusting your own judgement ... has that all-or-nothing affair you speak so emphatically of happened yet? Yes? No? If your answer is ‘no’, then what are you going to do in the meanwhile ... keep on with your current [quote] ‘game of ego’ [endquote], perchance?

RESPONDENT: Yes, exactly!

RICHARD: Okay ... I appreciate your candour.

I have no further questions.

January 10 2006

(... snip ...)

RICHARD: For your information: the person referred to above – just like the co-respondent you so erroneously cited only the previous evening –

RESPONDENT: (...) the link you posted had nothing whatever to do with the incident I was referring to.

RICHARD: The link I posted has more than a little to do with the incident you were referring to inasmuch it clearly demonstrates why a one-off application of an ersatz version of the actualism method, in combination with insufficient motivation to go beyond how life was currently being experienced (because it was much better than that of most peers), is not likely to stop or nip in the bud what was expressed as unnecessary thoughts, and which were labelled as worrying, and described as not intense but just a discomfort.

In other words, for an assertion that [quote] ‘Richard’s advice did not work’ [endquote] to be valid Richard’s advice does need to be first taken as advised.

Which is why I provided the information that I did in this e-mail you have responded to ... to wit: that the co-respondent you so erroneously cited (as being an example of my advice not working) was not a practitioner of the actualism method.

January 12 2006

CO-RESPONDENT: ‘The chair is blue’ is untrue at 10,000X magnification.

RICHARD: I will draw your attention to what you wrote a scant three sentences ago: [Co-Respondent]: ‘As soon as you open your mouth to describe the experiential you are expounding theory’. [endquote]. As you have, perforce, opened your mouth in order to share that bit of wisdom then, by your own reckoning, you are expounding theory ...

CO-RESPONDENT: Sure, but it’s a good theory. (...)

RICHARD: ... and I can only guess that your theory, that the chair miraculously ceases to be blue per favour the transmogrifying power of a human eye looking at it through a magnifying lenses, is as valid or as invalid as any other in the factless world you live in.

CO-RESPONDENT: (...) How do you know I live in a ‘factless world’? I see – you’ve made your judgement based on a misunderstanding of my position.

RESPONDENT: Yep.

RICHARD: As you are in agreement with my co-respondent’s theoretical judgement (‘you’ve made your judgement based on a misunderstanding of my position’) perhaps you might be inclined to describe just what your experience of that misunderstanding is?

Needless is it to add that the moment you do you too will be [quote] ‘expounding theory’ [endquote]?

RESPONDENT: Absurd. Totally absurd.

RICHARD: Here is what a dictionary has to say:

• ‘absurd: out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous; inappropriate; unreasonable; ridiculous, silly’. (Oxford Dictionary).

Just what is it that is totally out of harmony with reason/ totally unreasonable/ totally ridiculous/ totally silly about bringing to my co-respondent’s attention that, by their own reckoning, they are expounding theory ... and especially so given they have confirmed that to be the case with their [quote] ‘sure, but it’s a good theory’ [endquote] affirmation?

Furthermore, just what is it that is totally out of harmony with reason/ totally unreasonable/ totally ridiculous/ totally silly about making it patently obvious that, if any description of all matters experiential is to be expounding theory, then any and all non-theoretical discussion has come to an end?

Put succinctly: do you not see that an otherwise sensible discussion is now reduced to endlessly arguing the toss over whether a theory is [quote] ‘a good theory’ [endquote] or not?

I, for one, have no interest (and thus no intention) whatsoever in conducting my correspondence on that basis.

RESPONDENT: That kind of thing [Richard making a judgement based on a misunderstanding of his co-respondent’s position] happens all the time.

RICHARD: Here is what a dictionary has to say:

• ‘all the time: constantly, continually; at all times’. (Oxford Dictionary).

As I have written 500+ emails in the last twelve months alone it will be entirely understandable if you prefer to post your 500+ (suitably referenced and dated) substantiations of that allegation in a separate e-mail ... if you were to entitle it ‘The 500+ Quotes Which Substantiate My Allegation’, or something similar, it will be most appreciated.

RESPONDENT: Solipsism is one of these ‘reds under the bed’ kind of deals.

RICHARD: As nondualism (aka advaita) is just one of the many and various forms of solipsism which the east has exported to the west/ the west has imported from the east then just what is it, specifically, that occasions you to say that?

RESPONDENT: I thought you must be a masochist when you first went down that path ... but a real masochist could have derived weeks of delight from it.

RICHARD: It has nothing to do with masochism, real or otherwise, and everything to do with fellowship regard. And, by way of example, the following extract from my response to a fellow human being’s request for information/ explanation, on Friday the twenty-fourth of March 2000, should be quite self-explanatory:

• [Richard]: ‘In the West, the nineteenth century was optimistically called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until Eastern mystics came onto the world stage at the turn of the century with ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ ... busily being hell-bent on returning the burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of fallacy and fancy. Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the Eastern mystical thought and belief that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more widespread.
Prior to the recent influx of Eastern philosophy, if one realised that ‘I am God’, one would have been institutionalised ... and, to some degree, rightly so. One has stepped out of an illusion, only to wind up living in a delusion. However, the trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity and/or Judaism and/or Islam is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the jaded Western mind which is desperately looking for answers that abstract logical speculation and analytic deduction just cannot provide. The Christian and/or Judaic and/or Islamic conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the East.
It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘I am That’, for example, is simply another way of saying ‘I am God’ (aka ‘I am The Truth’). At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. I have been to India to see for myself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living ... and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing ... but it is practically and demonstrably deleterious to both individual and communal well-being. That is why one only needs to look at where this devotional spiritual living has been practiced for thousands of years to see how badly it has failed to live up to its implied promise of peace and harmony and prosperity for all. Thus both the spiritual and the secular methods of producing peace on earth have each failed miserably ... it is high time for a third alternative to hove into view; something new that has never been lived before in human history.
Why repeat the mistakes of the past when the results of doing so are plain to view in all cultures?

There were three more responses, of similar ilk, to three more requests for information/ explanation over the next four days ... and then, a scant two months later (Friday the twenty-third of June 2000), the following mass-circulated e-mail arrived in my mail-box:

• [quote] ‘I’ is enlightened. I woke up and woke up ... hmm’. [endquote].

I accessed an appropriate URL and, sure enough, there was indeed one more massively deluded human being strutting the world stage, giving of their bronze age wisdom to a benighted humanity, and (unless something truly remarkable has happened in the meanwhile) is still suckering the gullible into their particular manifestation of a culturally-revered insanity to this very day.

Put simplistically: the reds are not only under the bed they are also in the bed ... sometimes lying right beside you (pun intended).

January 16 2006

RESPONDENT: Solipsism is one of these ‘reds under the bed’ kind of deals.

RICHARD: As nondualism (aka advaita) is just one of the many and various forms of solipsism which the east has exported to the west/ the west has imported from the east then just what is it, specifically, that occasions you to say that?

RESPONDENT: I thought you must be a masochist when you first went down that path ... but a real masochist could have derived weeks of delight from it.

RICHARD: It has nothing to do with masochism, real or otherwise, and everything to do with fellowship regard. And, by way of example, the following extract from my response to a fellow human being’s request for information/ explanation, on Friday the twenty-fourth of March 2000, should be quite self-explanatory:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘I am That’, for example, is simply another way of saying ‘I am God’ (aka ‘I am The Truth’). At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’ ...’. [endquote].

There were three more responses, of similar ilk, to three more requests for information/ explanation over the next four days ... and then, a scant two months later (Friday the twenty-third of June 2000), the following mass-circulated e-mail arrived in my mail-box: [quote] ‘I’ is enlightened. I woke up and woke up ... hmm’. [endquote]. I accessed an appropriate URL and, sure enough, there was indeed one more massively deluded human being strutting the world stage, giving of their bronze age wisdom to a benighted humanity, and (unless something truly remarkable has happened in the meanwhile) is still suckering the gullible into their particular manifestation of a culturally-revered insanity to this very day. Put simplistically: the reds are not only under the bed they are also in the bed ... sometimes lying right beside you (pun intended).

RESPONDENT: I dare say they are.

RICHARD: Good ... I am pleased that your [quote] ‘solipsism is one of these ‘reds under the bed’ kind of deals’ [endquote] has been cleared up to your satisfaction and that you no longer think of me as a masochist (real or otherwise) for going down that path.

Now all that remains is to similarly clear up your next [quote] ‘game of ego’ [endquote] thought ... to wit: that Richard is a solipsist turned inside out.

RESPONDENT: But the irony of all this, Richard, is that you yourself are a solipsist turned inside out.

RICHARD: Here is what a dictionary has to say about that word:

• ‘solipsist: an adherent of solipsism [the view or theory that only the self really exists or can be known]; a person characterized by solipsism’. (Oxford Dictionary).

As only [quote] ‘the self’ [endquote] can be solipsistic – and as there is no such entity whatsoever extant in this flesh and blood body – just how you can think for a moment that Richard is a solipsist turned inside out simply defies sensibility.

RESPONDENT: You have lost the means by which you can ever perceive this.

RICHARD: Maybe, just maybe, that is because this flesh and blood body lost [quote] ‘the self’ [endquote] who would have the means to perceive what you perceive.

RESPONDENT: For an extreme solipsist, all that exists is the arena/ medium of self/ consciousness in which phenomena arises.

RICHARD: As the identity (aka ‘the self’) who inhabited this flesh and blood body all those years ago was such a solipsist for eleven years, night and day, the expression ‘teach one’s grandmother to suck eggs’ somehow seems rather apt.

RESPONDENT: For you, all that exists is matter/ energy (that which they call phenomena).

RICHARD: No, what a solipsist calls ‘phenomena’ is not, in any way whatsoever, what is [quote] ‘all that exists’ [endquote] for me.

RESPONDENT: They know the glass is half empty. You know the glass is half full.

RICHARD: What I know is that both the glass and its half-empty/ half-full contents you are referring to (both ‘the self’ and its ‘phenomena’) have no existence in actuality.

RESPONDENT: And because you’re saying something 180 degrees opposite, only one of you can be right, right?

RICHARD: How on earth can an illusory/ delusory identity (aka ‘the self’) even begin to be right about what the nature of actuality is when the actual, being totally obscured as it is by their ‘phenomena’, is forever beyond their ken?

RESPONDENT: And because it’s you, it’s you.

RICHARD: No, because it is actual, it is actuality.

RESPONDENT: The first thing you and the solipsists have in common is the supreme arrogance of thinking that you live in/as the only direct experience of the only thing that actually exists.

RICHARD: As no thing has any actual existence for a solipsist – they know that all their ‘phenomena’ only has an apparent existence – there is no way they would even begin to think any such thing (either with supreme arrogance or otherwise); as I intimately know, by living here in this actual world directly experiencing actuality as-it-is, that this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe is all that exists there is no reason for me to have to think of such a thing (either with supreme arrogance or otherwise).

Put succinctly: as only an identity (aka ‘the self’) can ever be a solipsist, and as an identity (aka ‘the self’) can never be a flesh and blood body, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, a solipsist can have in common with me.

Just by-the-by (and please correct me if I am mistaken) it is beginning to appear as if you are coming from what could be called an agnostic’s position ... for surely you would not be so ... um ... so supremely arrogant as to think you are the one who is right about what the nature of actuality is.

RESPONDENT: The next thing you have in common ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? In order to say that you do have to have established a prior thing in common.

RESPONDENT: ... is your complete inability to step outside your fixed frame of reference ...

RICHARD: As I obviously do not have ‘a set of standards governing perceptual or logical evaluation’ (Oxford Dictionary), in regards the direct experience of actuality, your assertion about such a thing being fixed, and thus unable to be stepped outside off, is meaningless.

RESPONDENT: (which you both regard as an impossibility even in principle).

RICHARD: Please correct me if I am mistaken but it is again appearing as if you are coming from what could be called an agnostic’s position (wherein, in principle, nobody can be right about what the nature of actuality is).

RESPONDENT: There are several advantages to being insane ... but this is one of the down sides.

RICHARD: As you go on to refer to [quote] ‘certainty’ [endquote] does the obverse also apply ... that one of the up sides of sanity is uncertainty?

RESPONDENT: Not to you, but to the people you interact with.

RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) I am not insane ...’.

And this:

• [Richard]: ‘As I was insane for 11 years – and sane for the preceding 34 years – I can report from direct experience that there is a third alternative’.

And, even more pertinently, to this:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘There is, of course, a third alternative to either sanity or insanity (insanity is but an extreme form of sanity) ...’.

Could it be that you take more notice of what your brother has to say than what I do? Vis.:

• [Respondent No. 64]: ‘Let’s look at some facts: Richard is insane. He has a severe and incurable psychotic disorder of unknown aetiology’. (Saturday 2/10/2004 10:24 PM AEDST).

For here is but one instance of an oft-repeated phrase of mine:

• [Richard to Respondent]: ‘I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder’.

RESPONDENT: Some of them anyway.

RICHARD: I am well aware that some peoples I interact with favour uncertainty ... peoples with an intellectual stance, for instance, that could be called an agnostic’s position.

RESPONDENT: Others find your certainty so attractive that they’ll try to shoehorn their way into that borrowed certainty for all they’re worth.

RICHARD: As it is the pure consciousness experience (PCE) which provides certainty, and not me or my words, you are simply grasping at straws.

RESPONDENT: For you, the world is the way you experience it because you experience it that way.

RICHARD: Here is a ‘word for the day’ for you to ponder:

• ‘tautology: a proposition that is true by virtue of the meaning of its terms’. (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: Everything you say about the world is circular and self-validating because, just like a solipsist, you think you have the only direct access to the only thing that actually exists.

RICHARD: Please correct me if I am mistaken but it is more than ever appearing as if you are coming what could be called an agnostic’s position (for surely you would not be thinking that you have the only direct access to the only thing that actually exists).

RESPONDENT: It is final ... and its self-validating nature is invisible to you because you have divested yourself of the means by which you might step outside that loop.

RICHARD: Ah ... and would that means, by which that loop might be stepped outside off, be what could be called agnosticism by any chance?

RESPONDENT: There is no way for anything new to get in, or anything old to get out.

RICHARD: Hmm ... something new as in a new theory about the composition, extent, duration, and origin, of a universe (aka ‘phenomena’) which exists only in the human psyche (per favour its intuitive/ imaginative facility), perhaps?

RESPONDENT: (Nothing dirty can get in ... heh ... like not even the slightest hint of uncertainty about the composition, extent, duration, origin of the universe itself!). In this respect, you are still as self-centred as can be ...

RICHARD: Do you realise that you have now set yourself up for the self-same criticism to be levelled against you were you ever to depart from what could be called an agnostic’s position ... inasmuch that, if on the off-chance you were to ever come across certainty yourself, by virtue of your own reckoning you too could be classified as being [quote] ‘still as self-centred as can be’ [endquote]?

Put bluntly: unless you are prepared to eat crow (which preparedness immediately negates your above criticism) you have now henceforth effectively locked yourself into uncertainty for ever and a day.

RESPONDENT: ... only now your self is actual/ physical, not psychic.

RICHARD: Oh? As in ‘the self’ was made flesh and dwelt among us, perchance?

January 30 2006

(...)

RESPONDENT: Shall we all have a ‘coming out’ party? I, No. 60, hereby announce that I am ‘virtually free from the human condition’.

RICHARD: As you apparently missed or overlooked my re-posting of the following, on two occasions only a couple of weeks ago, I will re-post it again:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Note brain of respondent is not actual free but claims to be virtual free and would like to be acknowledged as such if this is perceived as an actual fact ...’.
• [Richard]: ‘As I have already said, any acknowledgement is entirely up to that person (I decline to be a probity policeman) and, if it be an inaccurate assessment – or a false claim – publicly made then such a fooling of others only makes a fool out of oneself (one’s suffering still goes on privately).
Only a fool would fool oneself by trying to fool others ... ‘tis a fail-safe system’.

February 01 2006

VINEETO: [quote]: ‘... Virtual Freedom is a daring. Once you decide and declare to yourself and others that you are living in Virtual Freedom, you can’t slip back into not having a perfect day. You have to live up to your own standards. You pull yourself up on your boot strings. What a great tool! It’s another ‘lifting off the bar ‘on the wide and wondrous path to Freedom’. [endquote].

CO-RESPONDENT: Yes, even *merely* stating that I experience good parts of my average day in a virtual freedom ‘puts me out there’ in a way. I would not declare myself virtually free until I was quite certain, and it would be after months of such certainty.

RESPONDENT: Hmmmm. I think you might be missing Vineeto’s hint here. Maybe Vineeto missed it too, somewhere along the line. The basis of that little bootstrap operation is to fake it until there’s no evidence that you’re faking it. Let it become such a good act that it might as well be genuine, as far as anyone knows. No-one else can know what you’re experiencing. And, besides, who the fuck are ‘you’ to judge? Voila. You’re ‘virtually free from the human condition’, because you’ll be damned if you’ll let that mask slip, publicly OR privately. I wonder if Richard endorses this little bit of ... ummm ... applied sincerity?

Shall we all have a ‘coming out’ party? I, No. 60, hereby announce that I am ‘virtually free from the human condition’.

RICHARD: As you apparently missed or overlooked my re-posting of the following, on two occasions only a couple of weeks ago, I will re-post it again:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Note brain of respondent is not actual free but claims to be virtual free and would like to be acknowledged as such if this is perceived as an actual fact ...’.
• [Richard]: ‘As I have already said, any acknowledgement is entirely up to that person (I decline to be a probity policeman) and, if it be an inaccurate assessment – or a false claim – publicly made then such a fooling of others only makes a fool out of oneself (one’s suffering still goes on privately). Only a fool would fool oneself by trying to fool others ... ‘tis a fail-safe system’.

RESPONDENT: Hmmm. When another correspondent, who has been posting high quality, thoughtful and relevant items to the mailing list for years, asks a simple off-topic question that could have been answered in two words at most ...

RICHARD: Here is that [quote] ‘simple’ [endquote] off-topic question, entitled ‘End of Extinction’, in its entirety:

• ‘Richard, what would be your preferred method for your body to be dealt with after you die?’ [endquote].

Given that you say it is written by a correspondent who has been posting high quality, thoughtful and relevant items to this mailing list *for years* please demonstrate how it can be answered in two words at most ... paying particular attention to the fact that the title indicates a lack of comprehension as to what extinction means in the context of an actual freedom from the human condition – the total extirpation of any identity whatsoever who could have a body – which lack is borne out by the pivotal two words of the text itself.

Incidentally, this is what a simple question (such as would elicit a simple answer) looks like:

• [example only]: ‘Richard, do you have a preference as to how the peoples still living will deal with you upon your death?
• [Richard]: ‘No’. [end example].

RESPONDENT: ... [When another correspondent, who has been posting high quality, thoughtful and relevant items to the mailing list for years, asks a simple off-topic question that could have been answered in two words at most] you have a go at him for fiddling while Rome burns.

RICHARD: I did not [quote] ‘have a go at’ [endquote] my co-respondent, period.

RESPONDENT: Rome is still burning, yet here you choose to respond to a piece of obvious foolishness that was intended to fool no-one, least of all me.

RICHARD: As you appeared to be having a memory-lapse I reinserted the snipped text which preceded your announcement ... is it [quote] ‘a piece of obvious foolishness’ [endquote] as well?

RESPONDENT: I don’t understand your sense of priorities.

RICHARD: I do not have a [quote] ‘sense of priorities’ [endquote] ... as everything anyone needs to know is already available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site I write only as the whim takes me. For instance:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... you have indicated on two occasion that the conversation must stop, or would end, or you would not proceed, until a particular aspect of the conversation was addressed to your satisfaction.
• [Richard]: ‘No, no ... to your satisfaction. It is your mind that experiences my writing as an unsatisfactory [quote] ‘mash of mush’ [endquote] ... speaking personally, I experience the ultimate satisfaction twenty four hours of the day. I have arrived at my destiny and am already always here now ... so I have nothing to prove and nothing to achieve. I am retired and on a pension and instead of pottering around the garden I am currently pottering around the Internet ... and *I write as much or as little as the whim takes me*.
If my writing was dependent upon the other’s words being [quote] ‘addressed to my satisfaction’ [endquote], nothing would get written as only excellence will impress excellence’. [emphasis added].

RESPONDENT: You could not have thought I was serious.

RICHARD: There was no thought (aka judging) at all about what your current game of ego might be ... you specifically stated that the basis of your little bootstrap operation is to fake it until there is no evidence that you are faking it – to let it become such a good act that it might as well be genuine, as far as anyone knows, as no-one else can know what you are experiencing – and, besides, [quote] ‘who the fuck are ‘you’ to judge’ [endquote] did you not?

Somehow I am reminded of that ‘boy who cried wolf’ kindergarten tale.

February 01 2006

RESPONDENT: Oh this goes way back Richard. I am not only referring to this particular thread, far from it. I am referring to just about every correspondent you have ever ‘tried and failed’ to communicate with. Your verbal attacks are reknown and I, and many others, comment on them often, with you either remaining deafeningly silent or vehemently denying. And yep that’s what we are always dealing with here, brains that are interpreting words, and I am not talking about selves, I am talking about brains that interpret words and sensations and this one, if it is interpreting the way you are carrying on correctly, detects that you interpret ‘the interpreting brain’ as some kind of problem.

BTW please do snip away, it cuts the crap. In the same vein I have taken the liberty of snipping out what you wrote below and changed the subject title to better reflect what I was originally ‘interpreting’ and referring to when I stepped in. To Wit:

• [Co-Respondent to Richard]: My interpretation, by the way you correspond (steamroll/ verbally attack), is that peace on earth is no where to be found in your correspondence. You are just another vain ego up on your pedestal imagining your own subjective interpretation (and that is all it can ever be, verbal or otherwise) is the final arbiter, and the interpretations of your correspondents amount to jack shit.

So many of us see the same thing, and have for years. I’m sure we’ve all wondered many times whether it was just us, or whether there was really something there to see. How could we all be imagining this? This was my take on it after a particularly shitful episode back in January ’04 ... and as far as I can see nothing has changed since then. Just another dozen or so correspondents have come and gone in apparent disgust or disillusionment. http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=909449957 

RICHARD: Here is my response to your [quote] ‘take on it’ [endquote]:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909456484

And here is what your co-respondent was replying to:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909449803

Finally, here is my response to that reply:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909452231

If you could explain how any of that demonstrates [quote] ‘the same thing’ [endquote] as what my co-respondent interprets – that Richard corresponds with just about every correspondent with verbal attacks/that peace on earth is nowhere to be found in Richard’s correspondence/that Richard is just another vain ego up on his pedestal imagining his own subjective interpretation – such as to justify you saying, that as far as you can see, nothing has changed since then (January 2004) it would be most appreciated.

Or is this e-mail of yours just another piece of obvious foolishness as well?

February 01 2006

RESPONDENT (to Respondent): So many of us see the same thing, and have for years. I’m sure we’ve all wondered many times whether it was just us, or whether there was really something there to see. How could we all be imagining this? This was my take on it after a particularly shitful episode back in January ‘04 ... and as far as I can see nothing has changed since then. Just another dozen or so correspondents have come and gone in apparent disgust or disillusionment. (lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=909449957).

RICHARD: Here is my response to your [quote] ‘take on it’ [endquote]:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909456484

And here is what your co-respondent was replying to:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909449803

Finally, here is my response to that reply:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909452231

If you could explain how any of that demonstrates [quote] ‘the same thing’ [endquote] as what my co-respondent interprets – that Richard corresponds with just about every correspondent with verbal attacks/that peace on earth is nowhere to be found in Richard’s correspondence/that Richard is just another vain ego up on his pedestal imagining his own subjective interpretation – such as to justify you saying, that as far as you can see, nothing has changed since then (January 2004) it would be most appreciated.

Or is this e-mail of yours just another piece of obvious foolishness as well?

RESPONDENT: If you can’t see it already, you never will.

RICHARD: If you cannot explain it, it never happened.

February 01 2006

(...)

RESPONDENT (to Respondent): So many of us see the same thing, and have for years. I’m sure we’ve all wondered many times whether it was just us, or whether there was really something there to see. How could we all be imagining this? This was my take on it after a particularly shitful episode back in January ‘04 ... and as far as I can see nothing has changed since then. Just another dozen or so correspondents have come and gone in apparent disgust or disillusionment. (lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=909449957).

RICHARD: Here is my response to your [quote] ‘take on it’ [endquote]:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909456484

And here is what your co-respondent was replying to:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909449803

Finally, here is my response to that reply:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?sort=&mid=909452231

If you could explain how any of that demonstrates [quote] ‘the same thing’ [endquote] as what my co-respondent interprets – that Richard corresponds with just about every correspondent with verbal attacks/that peace on earth is nowhere to be found in Richard’s correspondence/that Richard is just another vain ego up on his pedestal imagining his own subjective interpretation – such as to justify you saying, that as far as you can see, nothing has changed since then (January 2004) it would be most appreciated.

RESPONDENT: If you can’t see it already, you never will.

RICHARD: If you cannot explain it, it never happened.

RESPONDENT: If you are not amenable to the explanations, nobody can ever explain.

RICHARD: I am clearly referring to you about your explanation – or rather the marked absence of same – and your futile attempt to shift the focus off yourself by recourse to a generalisation about peoples in general regarding a hypothetical lack of amenability is both a waste of your time typing it out and the bandwidth used to send it.

I will say it again: if you cannot explain it – that which you allege is [quote] ‘the same thing’ [endquote] as what my co-respondent interprets – in the January 2004 exchange you cited it never happened.

It is your call.


CORRESPONDENT No. 60 (Part Ten)

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